


An Agony of Seconds

by EssayOfThoughts



Series: A World Apart (MCU-DOFP X-over) [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Codependency, Gen, MCU Maximoff Twins in the place of Peter, Telekinesis, Telepathy, i was bored can you tell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 02:09:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9152881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: His mind is ... in flux. She hovers above it, a blood-winged angel with eyes of onyx set in among the feathers, abnormally long fingers ready to comb through the memories of the minds she watches.Minds. Not mind.There is a sleeping mind, deep beneath, only kept sleeping by the mirrored wakefulness of the mind above. They are similar, both watchful survivors, but the waking mind has memories of blood and flesh and death, deaths thathave not happened yet.Wanda?Pietro asks.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is born of a few simple things, but mostly my love of the AOU Maximoff twins. This fic is also one thing I am terrible at – a crossover – but I’m quite satisfied with how I’ve designed this crossover. Simply put the AOU twins are in the place of Peter and his sister in DoFP. More complexly put… I’ll leave that for the very end of the fic, as I hope to gradually explain it throughout the fic itself. That said, a few points:
> 
> 1\. This fic starts from Logan, Charles and Hank knocking on the Maximoff’s door, and is from the twins POV albeit in third person focalised.  
> 2\. There will be no flash-forwards to what is happening in the future, but there may be moments of memories of the future, if that makes sense. It should in context at least.  
> 3\. The twins are Magneto’s kids. This will be properly explained. I promise.  
> 4\. The twins have better English than they do in AOU. This will also be explained, though it should be relatively obvious.
> 
> Writing Playlist for this fic is in the End Notes

 

Wanda has barely heard the knock at the door before Pietro is up from the couch, and sprinting to the door. She is used to her brother’s speed, utterly, just as he is used to the way her scarlet dances in the world and to his mind. The door is knocked, the wind whispers, and Pietro is up from the couch where they had been watching some politician blather, and gone to get it. She sits up and turns the telly off. There are murmurs upstairs, and then the door shutting, and the heavy steps of three people descending the stairs while Pietro whisks back down to her.

Wanda sees the face of the first man, sees his mind and _knows_. She looks at her brother. “No.”

“Hey, hey, we’re just here to talk.” The man waves his hands, trying to be soothing, and Wanda lets the least touch of scarlet leak into her eyes.

“ _No_ ,” Wanda said, emphatically. “You’re going to ask Pietro do something _illegal_ , and I’m not letting him get in that kind of trouble _ever_.” She glances to Pietro who is rolling on the balls of his feet. “We’re not doing that to Mom.” Beside her Pietro settles onto his heels, and his hand twitches towards her wrist.

The man behind him – glasses, neat hair, timid demeanour – steps forward. “We’re just here to talk, really. Please? I’m Hank. He’s-”

“Logan.” The first man’s voice is gruff.

“And that’s Charles.” The man points a thumb over his shoulder at the scruffy one with the pale eyes. “We really need your brother’s help.”

 _What do they want?_ Pietro’s voice skims into her mind, swift and soft. Wanda sends a memory skimming in, someone making metal dance, trapped and then free.

 _They want him_ , Wanda sends. _He says it is important._

Pietro’s hand curls and uncurls, a reflexive motion of uncertainty. He waits for Wanda’s single blinking motion to ask, “What help?”

Gruff-Logan lifts a shoulder. “We need to break an old friend out of the Pentagon.”

 

* * *

 

Wanda can feel the aching curiosity of her brother underneath her skin – like a morning stretch – and reaches to take his hand.

“Why?” She asks.

Gruff-Logan’s eyebrows rise. “Don’t care about the who?”

“Why is more important. Then the who. _Why?_ ”

Scruffy shrugs, glasses looks uncertain, gruff-Logan steps forward with a sigh. “Shit is going to happen. Bad shit. One of our old friends is trying to kill Trask—”

Wanda laughs. “You think we would want to stop that?”

The three raise their eyebrows Pietro rolls his eyes but keeps his distance. “He deserves to die. There are many reasons why.”

“This ain’t a good reason,” Logan says, shaking his head. “If our friend kills him, she gets captured and the robots he’s designing to kill us get an upgrade which makes them unstoppable.”

Wanda’s eyes narrow. “A good thing we are not you then.”

“No,” Glasses-Hank says. “By us, he means mutants. _All_ mutants.”

It’s in his mind, the truth of it, an absolute certainty in whatever it was his memories indicate Logan told him. The certainty is so sharp-strong that Wanda does not even note their certainty that they too are mutants. Her eyes flick to Logan, see the memories in the warping orb of _his_ mind and oh-

It is as bleak and desolate as home was, as bleak and desolate as Sokovia and a thousand times more emptied of life than Novi Grad ever was even with all the constant death, a thousand times darker. At her side Pietro is half-straining, asking before she can tell him-

“How do you know this is true?” He is stepped forward again, their hands strung between them. This has slipped like a puzzle piece into the dance of _protection_ that anchors his mind, that has anchored his mind since they were ten, and she knows he will not let it go.

Scruffy shrugs. Glasses looks uncertain. Logan rolls his eyes at them. “My mind was sent back from the future in which she _does_ kill him in order to pilot my body in the here and now in the hope it would stop my friends and I all from _dying_.” There’s a note of the sarcastic to his tone, a note of exasperation, but Wanda can see his mind, see the absolute truth of it all, see the white-web-needles of someone else’s hands around his head warping him through time to here.

Pietro glances to Wanda but she does not glance back. This is, logically, impossible, but so are they and what they can do. Pietro should not be able to carry her safely at the speeds he does, she should not be able to observe minds, to move things with her dancing scarlet.

Gruff-Logan should not have memories of here and now and ahead in the future and of the _far_ future of things happening even as this happens. But they can. But Logan is. The impossible made real.

She glances between the three men, the scruffy one – Charles – shrugging and uncertain, glasses – Hank – looking almost hopeful, and Logan, certain and cynical.

Wanda steps forward, lifts a hand, scarlet dancing in a web between her fingers, straining to search out every relevant memory so she can see all that is said and not said of this future. “Let me in,” she asks, and dives forward.

 

* * *

 

His mind is… in flux. She hovers above it, a blood-winged angel with eyes of onyx set in among the feathers, abnormally long fingers ready to comb through the memories of the minds she watches.

Minds. Not mind.

There is a sleeping mind, deep beneath, only kept sleeping by the mirrored wakefulness of the mind above. They are similar, both watchful survivors, but the waking mind has memories of blood and flesh and death, deaths that _have not happened yet_.

 _Wanda?_ Pietro asks.

 _Look_ , she sends, and her voice is soft. The memories she sends him are tinged with scarlet not of her mind. Memories of a future which has not yet happened, memories of Logan’s life, and the deaths of his friends. Somehow, _somehow_ , memories of Pietro heaving hoarse breaths and memories of her coughing out black gobbets of blood, when they have not met this man before. Memories of others upon others, dying over and over, all tinged with loss like that which they felt when they were ten.

 _He says_ , Wanda sends, and follows with the image of Logan’s face. _That the world will die, if we do not help._ There is an image of robots, huge scaled creatures of fire and flexing metal and plastic and somehow cells. _He hopes that you will help them, and that it will work._ She sits in the chandelier, tucks her wings back to drip blood down behind her, watches the vast cathedral-shape of her mind and sighs. _Do you want to go?_

 

* * *

 

Logan looks dazed when she leaves his mind, like he didn’t expect her scarlet. She supposes he did not, and reminds herself that not everyone is Pietro, and will welcome her into their minds as though it is nothing. Wanda’s hand squeezes Pietro’s.

“We will help,” she says, and scans the three. “Both of us.”

 

* * *

 

The journey to the Pentagon is slow, and gives Pietro much time to think. Wanda is curled beside him on a seat, alternately looking out the window or reading a book, and he, he is left much time to himself. Wanda’s mind is quiet, even the choir stands sitting silent and empty as they travel. He remembers how it was when her scarlet first snaked into his mind, a Synagogue like they went to each Sunday, the women’s section watching down on the main hall, murmured whispers of the Torah and the Talmud. It has changed so much since then, and Pietro does not know if he entirely grasps the why. He supposes, deep within, it is for the same reason he keeps a faint mezuzah still dancing at the edge of his mind, even though they do not Believe any longer.

They cannot Believe after the bombing. They can believe in themselves and in each other and in their powers, but not in some unknowable G-d. Not a G-d which did nothing to help them or their stepfather or any of those others whimpering and screaming in the rubble while their new-gained powers had taken them to safety, had allowed Wanda to touch their mother’s mind and guide the rescue crews to all those still living.

Pietro watches the world swishing by and knows he could make it speed by faster if he was allowed to run. Carrying Wanda in his arms they could be there in so little time, but the other three have a car and so that is how they will travel.

Hank and Logan are in the front, alternating driving at each rest stop, and Charles is in the back with them, pressed against one window. Wanda watches out the other and leans against Pietro – squished in the middle – with her feet against the door. Charles is still grumpy about something, and Hank says he’s been that way since Logan arrived to recruit them. Hank is dozing right now, and Logan is focussed on the road, a reeking cigar clamped between his teeth.

Charles is staring out the window, making mild complaining noises every other minute and it’s driving Pietro _mad_.

“Hey, why don’t you stop that,” he says, elbowing Charles. “Either deal with the problem or get over the problem. Don’t make us endure your moaning too.”

Charles looks quite offended at that, and Pietro has to keep from laughing. He looks like a six-year-old – a scruffy-bearded six-year old – his bright blue eyes crushed into a frown, lips pursed in something midway between disapproval and anger.

“Maybe,” Pietro says, knowing he’s as likely to wind the man up as defuse the problem, “You should focus on the problem at hand.” In the front Logan pokes Hank awake with a jab of his finger, and points to the back with a jerk of his thumb.

“I _am_ ,” Charles grits out. “Erik and I didn’t part on the best of terms.”

Pietro grins. “Lover’s quarrel?”

Charles opens his mouth to speak, but Hank gets there first. “Something like that,” he says. And then, “How fast _can_ you go? Logan says you’re fast enough, but… like what's your top speed?”

Pietro shrugs and Wanda’s head pops up over his shoulder. His arm feels cold without her head pressed against it, and Wanda gets Hank’s attention with a briefly waved hand. “Last time he tried to go stupidly fast he broke the sound barrier.”

In the front Logan grunts, “Fast enough for you, Beast?”

Hank swings back into his seat, settling against the vinyl. “Should be,” Hank says, and lifts a bottle of water in a mock-toast. “Here’s hoping.”

 

* * *

 

The Pentagon is… it's big, but they always knew it would be that, even when the first arrived in America to stay with their relatives and learned of all of the vast things it held, so much more vast than Sokovia ever was, even before its destruction had begun. It’s big and the tour guide is slow and while occasionally interesting is mostly boring. They slip away from the group with Charles and Logan, and Wanda is scooped into Pietro’s arms away from the watching gaze of the cameras as they find their way down to the elevator.

The one that will take them to Magneto. To the one called Erik Lensherr.

They’ve barely nipped into it in time but Pietro gets to work immediately, taping the guard to the side of it that he says, “Didn’t Mom know someone who could control metal?”

In Wanda’s mind memories rise. Memories of their mother’s, memories offered up when Wanda had first touched their mother’s mind, as they had sat by the remains of their home, as Pietro had sung her a lullaby, their mother had offered up memories of their father as they mourned their stepfather and waited for her to be pulled free of the rubble.

Wanda had kept them buried, knows Pietro had kept what she had given him of them buried too, because _Magnus_ had been their father in all the ways that counted, had cared for them, loved them as his own, had protected them from the protests they had to walk through back from school.

Not the red-haired, sharp-toothed man who had smiled so charmingly at their mother.

 

* * *

 

The elevator doors open and Wanda sends scarlet darting down the hall to incapacitate every mind down it. Pietro is but a blur of blue to the end, and she can feel him using his speed to shatter glass, feel him sprinting back with the man who-

Whose face matches exactly the one in their mother’s memories.

Wanda releases the men from her scarlet, hits the button for the elevator, uses her scarlet to close doors faster, to pull them up the cable swifter.

She does not tell Pietro who the man they just broke out is to them.

 

* * *

 

The elevator opens to chaos and only Wanda’s scarlet, Pietro’s speed get them out of it. (Erik’s metal would have caused chaos and no more, caused chaos and harm and damage, _killed,_ if there had not been them to counter it.)

“No killing,” Charles had said.

“I couldn’t disobey you if I wanted to,” Erik had replied.

But he could. He could. Charles does not have his powers, Wanda can _see_ that, without seeing his memories, can see his power waiting _in potentia,_ binding his mind from soft winds into a great storming cloud, a tempest waiting to get out.

She remembers English Lit. She remembers all the chaos a single tempest can cause.

 _Move,_ she pushes into Hank’s mind far away, and to Logan’s and Charles’ and Erik’s. _Move,_ she pushes until they are outside, in the car, moving away, heading towards the airport.

It’s cramped, now, all five of them, plus Erik, but somehow they manage to find a way to fit, Wanda curled on her brother’s lap, both of them catching what sleep they can to remedy the stress of the job they just completed.

Wanda does not remind Pietro, does not dig up the memories he long-ago buried. Wanda lets her brother remain oblivious, just for now.

 

* * *

 

“We are staying with you,” Wanda says, her hand in her brother’s on the tarmac of the runway. “This is… This will affect _all_ of us, you have said this. And you do not have your powers.” She looks right at Charles as she says it, scarlet in her gaze meeting a blue as certain and unrelenting as her brother’s. “Someone must stop the minds you cannot.”

Beside her, Pietro echoes her words. “We’re coming with you,” he says. “Like it or not.”

 

* * *

 

When the plane starts shaking Wanda laces her scarlet through Erik’s mind and pins him to a chair. She does not try to tame his metal; his mind is a forest of bladed steel trees, razor sharp stones, saw-edged leaves and shrubs. There are no animals there. Wanda does not try to tame it, but she demands of it to sit, and so he does. There is a confused quiet, _Charles?_ sent up in glittering silver from the steel and iron and tarnished copper of the trees, but there is no pause in his tirade.

Wanda waits for calm and releases her scarlet hold, ghosting instead into Charles’ mind.

 _He misses you_ , she sends, and the image of his filigreed name above Erik’s forest. She does not stay within the trapped and lashing storm of Charles Xavier’s mind, and leaves.

 

* * *

 

When the plane is still and its creases ironed out by Erik’s will, Wanda curls in a seat by Pietro.

 _I do not like him_ , her brother sends.

_Nor I._

_He is dangerous_ , Pietro sends, and Wanda knows he does not simply mean to the mission. Pietro senses her understanding and continues. _If,_ Pietro asks, _He does not follow the plan, will you be able to hold him?_

Wanda looks at Erik, playing chess with Charles. _I don’t know_ , she sends honestly. _I will try_ , she adds, _But I cannot promise. His mind is all metal, like the shell that took Magnus_.

Pietro nods, and tucks her closer. The arm between their seats has been tucked up, and he has found blankets, somehow. Plain blue with touches of cream they are very much his own colours, and Wanda sleeps leaning against him, the blankets draped over them both.

 

* * *

 

Paris is…

Paris is more than they ever expected and, somehow, less too. Wanda and Pietro ghost through passport checks with a simple flick of Wanda’s scarlet, with the bright blue of Pietro’s speed, and they are waiting by the rental car when Charles and Hank and Erik and Logan emerge.

“To the hotel,” Charles says. “It’s late, and we have a busy day tomorrow.”

 

* * *

 

The hotel is richer than expected - but then Charles apparently has a _plane_ he can call on, and Wanda and Pietro both suppose that richness is all this man knows. Wanda and Pietro have only what clothes and toiletries Pietro snagged in the airport, which is, to be honest, more than any of the others seem to have.

 _“Men,”_ Wanda sighs, brushing her hair. “So ready to become incompetent.”

Pietro, sat in the chair in the corner, feet on the table, disregarding the rules and proprieties a hotel such as this would expect with such calm casualness she cannot help but smile. “Not all of us are incompetent, sister dearest-”-there is alway something _slightly_ mocking in his tone when he uses that particular endearment and it makes Wanda smile more to hear-“-But I do not deny they are especially bad.”

It was, after all, Pietro who had remembered that Wanda liked to brush her hair before bed, and Pietro who had thought that fresh changes of clothes, decent pyjamas, would do them good.

Wanda curls in her bed to sleep, crisp bedsheets, clean bedsheets, nice _cool_ bedsheets, and lets her brother brush her hair back from her brow.

“Sweet dreams,” Pietro says, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I am here if you need me.”

Scarlet threads between their minds as he slips into his bed, ties their minds together so that, no matter the nightmares to come, they have each other to call on.

 

* * *

 

“Are we in the future?” Wanda asks Logan during the drive in the morning. “Or do we die before your present?”

Logan shrugs. “I don’t know. I only met you and your brother once or twice in the future, and after the sentinels... Once, and he was unconscious. Last I heard… There was a speedster who died, and a mutant who melted Sentinels for miles in every direction before burning herself out.”

Wanda smiles softly even as beside her she can feel Pietro’s flinch. “That would have been us, I think. We have been through too much together to die apart.”

Logan huffs a breath. “You’re mighty calm for someone who heard they died.”

Scarlet dances in happy curlicues from Wanda’s fingers where they rest on her knee, light up the car they’re in. “Are we not to change it?”

“Yeah,” Logan’s voice sounds almost uncertain. “But there’s no guarantee this’ll work.”

Wanda’s smile is gentle even as Pietro frowns at her words. “May I see it?”

“Huh?”

“The memory.”

Logan shrugs. “Don’t know why you’d want to. Erik went nuts when he found out. It’s not a pretty memory.”

The smile Wanda gives is knife-edged as she sends her scarlet. “Are any of them?”

 

* * *

 

Wanda’s scarlet gets them in the gate, a single flick of her fingers getting them past the guards.

“We should hurry,” she says softly. “Something is going on upstairs.”

 

* * *

 

Wanda is trying to hold Logan in _their_ present when Erik goes rogue, and Wanda can send out scarlet, try to hold him, but she is not trained for this, not even _practiced_ , she can influence minds easily, but to hold them, bind them, command them, to hold several minds at once…

“Pietro!” she calls, and trusts her brother’s speed to pin Erik long enough that she can pin Logan back into their present. “Hold on, Logan,” she murmurs, slipping into Sokovian in her panic, “Hold on.”

But she doesn’t have time to check and she is almost _lashing_ scarlet out because _Charles_ has not the strength to let himself see - hear, really - the minds around them and so it is down to her to try to control them all, young and unpracticed and only truly used to Pietro’s mind around hers.

 _Pietro_ , she thinks, and follows his mind towards Erik’s.

“You keep him here,” she says to Charles, heading for the window. Charles may not have minds now but he still knows people well enough. Wanda has done what she can to help anchor Logan’s mind, it is in Charles’ hands now to hold him there.

Wanda sees her brother in the square below, distracting Erik with Hank while Raven tries to flee. Scarlet flows to her hands almost without asking - this is her _brother_ in danger, her _twin,_ and they have always fought hardest for each other.

Wanda steps out of the window and trusts her scarlet to catch her.

 

* * *

 

“You would hurt us?” she asks, scarlet hovering around her hands, holding back Erik’s metal. She scrapes through his mind, finds some mutual language that enough people around them won’t understand if she’s quick enough - she is only slightly surprised to find he knows Sokovian.

It is true, then, utterly. He is their father and Wanda hopes beyond reason that he might know that, might have that to restrain him, but she can see his mind, see his blindness to it all, see how he _does not care._

“We are all mutants, Erik!” she calls in Sokovian. “You would kill one of us to try to save us all? What if that sacrifice would rather not be made? What if killing provides the corpse for them to study? What if another mutant is born, similar enough to let them do it all the same?” All the possibilities she can see, can project, all the possibilities she can find, she throws them in the face of the man who might have been their father. “ _Think._ You would kill us to save us? That will not _work!”_

Hank, she can feel, is ready to pin him, Charles is with Logan trying to help him and _Raven-_

Mystique’s mind is a gorgeous shifting thing, like a prism in sunlight, except sometimes it is scarlet, sometimes blue, sometimes gold or green or grey. It shifts constantly, and only paused its glorious cycling change when she had spotted Charles. Suddenly it had been as blue as the ocean, blue as Xavier’s eyes, lined with the red-gold of dark copper and veined with a catlike gold.

Wanda had not known if she could hold such a shifting creature, had not tried. Now she finds that twisting, shifting mind again, moving farther and farther away as Erik is distracted. She tags it with her scarlet, tracks it with gentle scarlet fingers.

 _Wait_ , she sends. _We wish to aid you_. Her scarlet skims over the copper, threading in the message to the colour.

 _Charles?_ asks the mind.

 _Wanda_ , she replies. _I will not control you._

 

* * *

 

The connection is broken as Pietro pulls her to one side, out of Erik’s attempt to hold her, to tie her down with metal.

 _He would hurt us,_ Pietro sends. Wanda almost wishes to hate.

 

* * *

 

Erik strides off, free as anything as terrified people flee and shout. Wanda sends scarlet to Hank, to try to pry the metal from him, but she has not the strength anymore, has not the driving anger that had let her hold back Erik’s own metal before.

Hank snaps himself free, finds Charles and Logan.

Pietro, heart pounding so hard she can feel the echoes of it from his own mind, picks her up, carries her in a wave of bright blue to the others.

“Where now?” Pietro asks, setting Wanda down on wobbly feet, remaining at her side so she doesn’t fall. “What’s the plan?”

Wanda must be unspooling from her own mind with her tiredness, can almost _feel_ the dryness of Charles’ mouth as he says, “The airport. There’s no way left to salvage this.”

 

* * *

 

“What do we do now?” Hank asks as they all pile back onto the plane again, _sans_ Erik.“We haven’t stopped her, we’ve set _Erik_ free-”

“This is a clusterfuck,” Charles says, throwing himself into a seat. “We’re all _fucked.”_

He starts drinking, Logan starts smoking and Wanda curls in the corner with a blanket to shade her eyes and a cup of cool water to try to ease her migraine. With everyone in the main area of the plane brooding in silence Pietro sighs and goes to sit with Hank.

“So,” he says, watching the horizon as they start heading towards the ocean, “What do we do now?”

 

* * *

 

There is no plan. There is _nothing,_ now, but Wanda and Pietro go back to Westchester with Charles and Hank and Logan, make sure the job is done as much as they can be certain.

“You can clean up,” Charles says. “But then you should go home. Enough people might have noticed us, enough people who know who Hank and I are, who might track us here. If we’re arrested as accomplices I don’t want you caught too.”

Wanda and Pietro share a glance, Wanda’s thought shining in her mind.

_He is almost the man he might once have been._

And then Charles collapses by the table.

 

* * *

 

Wanda can feel his mind, lashing like a storm, feel it opening up and outwards, winds reaching freely without Charles’ self-control to hold them back.

In the world not-of-minds Charles is almost crying, cannot bear even their few minds in the presence of his winds, and Hank rushes off talking of treatments. Wanda kneels at Charles’ side, curls her hands slightly in the air by his head, just scant centimetres from his skin. Scarlet dances.

“When I gained my powers,” she says, softly, “I had Pietro. I could see minds all around us, but Pietro was right beside me, still holding me from when he’d tried to get us out of the way of the rubble. I was holding it up, and it almost fell, but Pietro was there. Pietro anchored me.”

Charles’ eyes are bright blue, not entirely dissimilar to Pietro’s and were it not for the certainty of their mother’s memories Wanda might have hoped they could have claimed Charles as family rather than Erik, but that is not to be. (Charles’ eyes widen as he hears the flow of her thoughts, but he says nothing.)

Scarlet wraps gently around the winds escaping from Charles’ mind, and they are _strong_ , as strong as the winds that keep Pietro’s mind and hers from merging into one, but so so many more, stretching _outwards_ instead of only circling.

“You need an anchor,” Wanda says. “You need something to hold you to yourself, so you aren’t … wrapped up by everyone else, blinded or deafened by them.”

Charles’ legs are limp but his fingers twitch, almost spasming against the floor. “You still get migraines,” he says.

What is there to do but shrug? “Yes,” Wanda says. “But _Mom_ gets them too. _Everyone_ gets them, or at least headaches. Take an aspirin, lay down in a dark room and rest.” Between their minds Wanda is directing his winds with her scarlet, buffering every mind she can sense. It’s not far enough - she can see Hank’s mind upstairs, but cannot reach him, she hasn’t Charles’ range - but it is all she can do for now.

She sits back, balances on the balls of her feet watching Charles. Scarlet drifts from her fingers as she keeps creating buffers. “You didn’t used to need this,” she says. “I can _see_ that. Just as you can _hear_ my thoughts. You can teach yourself again. You may _have_ to teach yourself again. If they come for you-”

Charles recoils, Wanda sighs. “I can only help you so much, how Pietro helped me. Pietro _who is not even a telepath._ ” She thinks that distinction is important, that Charles can live inside _anyone’s_ skull if he needs to escape the minds he can hear, can anchor himself not so he sees minds a new way, but to someone who can’t see them at all. “But you should help yourself. Not rely on other tricks, create a lie for yourself to live.”

She glances to Logan. “We are all _mutants._ Even if you hide from it it is still true. We are not normal. We were never _normal_.”

Pietro’s hand is gentle on her shoulder. “People hate that which is not normal.”

It is easy to take Pietro’s hand, let him pull her up. “I will buffer your mind,” Wanda says. “But you should pull yourself together.”

They leave the room, Pietro sending bold blue and silver strength and grounding grey from his mind to hers as they go to get food, to rinse their faces, to consider how to tell Mom of all of this.

As they leave they hear Logan talking to Charles. “Y’know,” he says. “She’s got a point.”

 

* * *

 

“Your mind is not _free_ yet,” Wanda is saying to Charles as they go to the basement. “To do this, to stretch yourself so far without warning, it could _hurt_ you.”

“Have you ever used Cerebro?” Charles says. “Anything even _similar?”_

Pietro has no idea what Wanda is seeing from Charles’ mind, this is the first time Wanda has encountered someone who shares her gifts, someone with whom she can exchange thoughts at least as rapidly as she always has with he.

“I have Pietro,” Wanda says, “and I can process more when Pietro is there to help.”

“You would risk his mind too? Would he allow that?” Charles asks.

“I’m game if Wanda thinks it’s ok,” Pietro says. He is, he always has been, he always will be, and he lets the thoughts rise to the front of his mind, loud and clear where Charles can hear and Wanda can see just how much he trusts his sister.

They are almost at the door, and Wanda runs ahead, plants herself in the way.

“If you will not _wait,”_ she says, “at least let me _help._ Use me to help you process it. If I can share a telepathic load with Pietro you can share yours with me. Do not _break_ your _brain.”_

Charles pauses, looks at Wanda, _sees_ her, eyes sparking with the same scarlet that spills from her fingertips, that holds in place the bridge that lies between Pietro’s mind and hers.

Pietro can hear the thought circling in Wanda’s mind, risen to the forefront now Charles’ telepathy has returned.

_You are the only one like me in the world._

“I won’t risk it,” Charles says, shaking his head. “Your reach isn’t as vast as mine. You haven’t had as long to practice, you’ve never tried _this._ ” His voice is gentle even as his words could have been condescending in any other tone. “You ask me not to break my brain, Wanda? I will. If only you will you promise to do the same.”

Pietro watches, waits. Hank fidgets, Logan watches, eyes slightly narrowed, and Pietro knows just how much is weighing on what happens now, on what happens when Charles uses this machine.

“I will promise,” Wanda says, eventually. “But if you need help, if you cannot-”

Charles’ hands reach out, take Wanda’s where the scarlet still sparks. Unafraid, just as Pietro always has been. “If I need help,” he says, “I will say.”

Pietro does not need to be a telepath to know the certain thought in Charles’ mind: _I won’t ask anyone for help._

 

* * *

 

“I’m not strong enough yet,” Charles says and Wanda offers him her hand, her curling scarlet.

 _Take my strength,_ she says. _Take Pietro’s. We cannot-_

Charles grasps her hand tightly funnels her scarlet into his winds and she is there, with him, as he stands before Raven.

 _I know what Trask has done,_ Charles tells Raven.

 _I have experienced it,_ Wanda adds. _My brother and I, we lost our stepfather to Trask’s bombs. We lost our home. It was that which triggered our powers. But even with that, killing-_

 _Killing him won’t bring the dead back,_ Charles sends. _Killing him will make us a threat to all humans, make them hate us. It will set you on a path from which there is no return, Raven. You would kill him, and then those that would kill you for killing him?_

 _That cycle never ends,_ Wanda sends. _It continues forever._

 _Please,_ Charles sends. _Come home. You don’t have to do this. You can end this, right now._

Raven closes her eyes, bows her head. When she opens them again there is something golden glinting in their depths. “I know what I have to do,” she says, and walks right through their projection.

 

* * *

 

Wanda reels backwards with a blinding headache, Pietro’s hands pressing cool against her forehead.

“Witch,” Logan says.

“Wanda,” from Charles, and Pietro is pushing them away.

“Leave her alone,” Pietro says. “She will be fine.”

Logan’s eyes are assessing as they watch him, cradling Wanda gently to his chest, and eventually he nods. “I say trust the boy with his sister. What are we gonna do about Raven, where is she?”

“An airport,” Charles says, “Boarding a plane to Washington, DC.”

“Guys,” Hank says.

 

* * *

 

Pietro’s a room away, pressing cold packs to Wanda’s forehead, but Wanda, through her headache, is funnelling their conversation to his mind, letting him hear what is going on.

“We can’t go,” he says, thumb stroking back her hair. “Not with you like this.”

 _We go,_ Wanda sends, and there is some firm certainty in her mind, some idea of an absolute certainty.

 

* * *

 

Wanda pushes Charles’ chair, Logan and Hank stand to either side, Pietro just a little behind, at her right hand.

“I can’t find her,” Charles says. “She has to be here, somewhere, but I can’t-”

Wanda reaches a hand forwards, presses a fingertip to Charles’ temple while Pietro pushes the chair perfectly in time with her other hand.

 _Now?_ Wanda asks and Charles sends a negative.

_Don’t strain yourself. Your migraine’s barely eased._

_It doesn’t matter,_ Wanda sends. _If we don’t stop her we could all die. A little pain is nothing._

 

* * *

 

“There,” Charles says, and Pietro whips over there, faster than anyone can see.

But even as he grabs for her, the Sentinels come online and a vast shadow blots out the sun.

Pietro misses.

 

* * *

 

 _“Not Raven!”_ Charles manages as Wanda uses her scarlet to get him clear of the hail of bullets. Logan and Hank are already running, she can feel casting about desperately to find Raven, and Wanda sends her scarlet arcing out, pulling up cars high above people to try to block bullets from as much of the crowd as she can.

As the Sentinels turn towards where she stands with Charles she feels Pietro sprint for her.

 

* * *

 

Pietro pulls Charles’ wheelchair away from the falling stadium, Wanda’s rising scarlet gives them just enough time before the rubble falls.

She can feel Hank and Logan’s minds, divided away.

 

* * *

 

Erik lands, looks around like a king surveying his kingdom. Pietro is rocking on his heels beside Wanda, Wanda has her mind linked to her brother and to Charles, and they all feel as Logan and Hank crest the rubble and the Sentinel launches at them.

“Stop it,” Wanda orders, and Pietro is off like a shot, darting and weaving, tripping the Sentinel as it paces along the ground, throwing punches that shatter its plastic armour.

Hank launches onto the Sentinel’s back as Pietro makes it pause, yells them off.

“Charles,” Wanda whispers. “I’m going to lift you.”

 

* * *

 

Logan and Pietro run for Erik. Pietro is faster, of course, but metal is being thrown in the path of his every step even as Erik is throwing more metal at Logan.

 _Stay safe,_ Wanda says.

Pietro does. Logan doesn’t.

“Charles,” she says, as Logan leaves her range. “Is he-”

“Still the Logan we met,” Charles promises. “We still have time.”

 _Pietro,_ Wanda thinks. _Stay back for now._

 

* * *

 

When the vault is torn asunder, Raven slips out of her hiding place.

 _Oh no,_ slips through Charles’ mind like silk.

Erik is speaking, making his speech, _We have time,_ Wanda sends. _Pietro-_

Raven steps out, and she is wearing the face of the president.

 

* * *

 

 _Raven,_ whispers Charles’ mind. _Oh please God._

 _There’s no god,_ Wanda thinks. _But there can be hope._

“Shoot me,” Raven says. “But let everyone else go free.”

 

* * *

 

 _Charles,_ Raven thinks, and calls up memories. _There’s a reason I didn’t listen. Now listen to me._

Wanda and Charles can both see it, see her logic and as the Sentinel turns its attention from no-longer-blue Hank back to Erik, as Erik dismantles the Sentinel, Raven takes out a gun, sheds her disguise, and shoots Erik in the neck.

Everything he had been holding falls.

 

* * *

 

“Wanda,” Charles says, “Get me into the open.”

Wanda moves him easily, lifts him forwards.

“Raven,” Charles says, voice clear and certain.

Raven straightens, looks at him. “Charles.”

They both turn to the men still huddled in the vault.

“We aren’t all your enemies,” Charles says. “Some of us have seen the evil you have wrought on us-”

“Those of us you killed and cut up,” Raven says, and there is an almost spitting anger in her voice but she holds it back.

“But we are still willing to work with you, to protect you from those of our kind who would do irreparable damage to human-mutant relations.” Charles voice rings out clearly as he continues, “We are not your enemies! We are people, just like you, with lives and loves and fears all of our own. We can be loyal to our homelands, loyal to our friends, loyal to our politicians.

“And some of those politicians will be yours as well. Not all mutations are visible. Just as many are invisible. Without these devices,” he waves a hand at Trask and Wanda has to balance the momentum for just a moment, “Many of us would be indistinguishable from you _because we are no different._ We are all people. We all wish to be allowed simple, peaceful lives. Lives where we aren’t at risk simply for being who we are.”

“Lives where we can be who we are,” Raven says softly, “No matter-”

Guns fire from the ground, and only Wanda’s throw of Charles out of the way, Raven’s swift duck gets them clear.

Wanda's hands, Pietro, running to try to stop Erik, are not so lucky.

 

* * *

 

In this moment Wanda does not care for the future which may or may not be, dancing in Logan’s mind. She does not care for the man supposed to be her father. She cares for her fallen brother, pouring blood beside her, and screams, falls and scarlet rises in scythes around her. Her fingers are agony, each bone broken, but her scarlet is raised to wroth, and needs no guidance. It is a bloody battlecry, even as her scream stretches towards a threnody.

Erik Lensherr’s helmet shifts around his skull, and through a haze of red he rips it off even as it itself is thrown. Wanda’s eyes are scarlet, filled with sadness and screaming fury, and Erik remembers feeling the very same thing, long years ago.

Words etched in blood peel into his mind. _You would do this to_ ** _us?_** In the world outside Wanda is still screaming, hoarse, and Pietro heaving laboured breaths. _We are your_ ** _blood._** Deep within his mind something is taken and twisted and around him metal falls. _You are no father. You are not even the brotherhood you promise. You are a bomb, just like Trask. You would kill us all as soon as he would._

Pietro’s hand spasms, clasps around Wanda’s wrist. “Wanda,” he breathes. “Wanda.” Wanda looks to her brother, and her eyes are stained with scarlet. One hand, fingers broken by the rings she wears, presses, as flat as she is able, to Pietro’s chest. The bullets buried in his body, embedded in his knees, are tugged out, reshaped by the sheer burning force of her scarlet. They hover around her, caught in _her_ net of scarlet, safe from Erik’s magnetic shell. She lines them up, aims them carefully.

And a mind like air whispers into hers.

 

* * *

 

Wanda is nothing but fury, and the words of a breeze blow it gently away. _Wanda_ , it asks, all cool calm and icelike eyes. _Wanda, would you be as bad as he?_ There is a pain in the words, a spreading pain of cerise, centred around the spine. _Are you not better?_ The message is sent with memories, of Wanda’s scarlet above a steel forest, of her scarlet holding still those who would stop them at the Pentagon, Wanda’s scarlet tearing Erik’s helmet from him. Then is Erik and Raven, blue limping away only to be torn close by metal. Wanda closes her eyes, clenches agonising hands into fists and opens them. Her eyes cease their scarlet dance.

 _No_ , she sends. _No I would not be as he is. I would rather be myself_.

There is a sense of relief from the soft breeze as Wanda’s scarlet leaves Erik’s mind, leaves the world around them and bloody bullets drop to the ground. The wind in her mind dances a final circle, soothing the threads of her red into place and feeling their pain. _Would you like Hank to look at your fingers?_ it asks. Around it Wanda’s scarlet cools from fever-pain to grateful warmth and the wind recedes.

In the world of the physical Wanda collapses by her brother, fingers aching, eyes weeping, and Pietro pulls her close. “It’s alright _,_ ” he murmurs, in the Sokovian of their childhood, pressing a kiss to her brow, even as she feels his aching muscles, his broken knees, down their bond. “Thank you.”

Not far away there is soft sound as Hank – no longer blue and furred – carries Charles forward as best he can, Charles upright and leaning. Wanda can feel the twisting, changing minds of the politicians in their torn open nest, and the calmly patient wind of Charles’. Erik’s mind is ever his steel forest, wild and untameable, but does not bridle at Charles’ touch.

 _We were friends, once,_ he sends to Erik. _We could be so again, perhaps_.

 

* * *

 

Wanda shakes her head, and waits for peace to be decided.

Beside her, she can feel how Pietro’s knees are healing now she has pulled the metal from them. She _asks_ her scarlet (cannot command it with her fingers broken and her fury gone) to nudge the shattered shards of his patellas back to where they should be, to help him heal as he should.

 _I hate him,_ she thinks, even if she does not let the thoughts to her brother. _I want to be safe._

Drifting as she is she can feel in the far far distance the vague shape of Logan’s mind, moving. He is in the river though, so that makes sense. Here, though, there is only them, and as Erik held in place by Charles’ certainty as Raven gets the president and the secret service clear.

“Trask,” Raven says as she leads them clear of the wreck of the stadium. “Have you told these lovely men about the arms you were going to sell to Vietnam?”

Wanda can feel the copper-gold vicious joy that darts through Raven as Trask pales.

“Old friend,” Charles says to Erik. “Let this chance of peace stand. Be ready if it fails. But please, old friend, don’t make it fail because you cannot stand a single chance of peace.”

Beside Wanda Pietro’s body heals, his knees strengthen. He hauls himself up, and Pietro carries Wanda back to the car where Hank is already waiting.

It will be a long drive back to Westchester, and Wanda doesn’t think she wishes to be awake for it all.

 

* * *

 

  


**Author's Note:**

> Music I listened to while writing this (and the sort-of-sequel scenes I have still):
> 
> 1\. [Head Is Not My Home - MS MR](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKRfqQI3FJc)  
> 2\. [Enjoy The Silence - Depeche Mode](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofrB6OCSsgk)  
> 3\. [Lock Me Up - The Cab](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XF_XwFixAg)  
> 4\. [Latin Industries - Kevin MacLeod](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60JEITGc5is)  
> 5\. [Fairly Local - Twenty One Pilots](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDI9inno86U)  
> 6\. [Gasoline - Halsey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRHNi3QfFlE)  
> 7\. [Just Can't Get Enough - The Black Eyed Peas](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrTyD7rjBpw)  
> 8\. [Welcome To Paradise - Aviators](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Olli9bETzXk)  
> 9\. [Quand C'est ? - Stromae](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aJw4chksqM)  
> 10\. [Papaoutai - Stromae](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiKj0Z_Xnjc)  
> 11\. [Burn It Down - Linkin Park](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxytyRy-O1k)  
> 12\. [Ammunition - Aviators](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHzWGFN6NgQ)  
> 13\. [Born Depressed - Drill Queen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpG4t54g2fk)  
> 14\. [Atop The Fourth Wall Theme (The Living Tombstone's Remix) - Instrumental - Vincent E. L.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ9LbQByNS8)  
> 15\. [Blinding - Florence And The Machine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da6bBKLPEGg)  
> 16\. [press start to drop it like it’s hot - Quadisclecar](https://soundcloud.com/quadsiclecarofficial/dave-the-strider)  
> 17\. [Bombs Over Brooklyn - Big Data](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et0rk_M3Wv0)
> 
> Please leave comments!


End file.
